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LDT Master's Projects

Several countries around the world face challenges with rising high school dropout rates. Just in Brazil, only 56% of high schoolers graduate at the age of 19. One of the root causes behind this striking figure is students' shared perception that school lacks relevance to their lives. Research...

Completing a course online is challenging. Online learners need to monitor and reflect on their own behavior and learning in an individual learning space, very different from school. Metaspace connects online learners to their peers, who help them to reflect on their learning in class. Using...

Students in online courses do not usually receive the contextualized feedback on their learning at the appropriate level of “granularity”. Kajitory is a learning dashboard with an interactive map of course topics. These comprehensive topics help students recognize the course’s structure, as well...

There are 23 million adults in the United States with limited English proficiency. Many English learners frequently interact with English speakers at work, at the grocery store, and at their children’s schools, and research shows that increased exposure to English leads to an increase in...

Adolescents are generally aware of their neighborhood conditions and opinionated about the changes they want to see. Yet, there is a low sense of empowerment and agency, and lack of academic relevance that deters them from active engagement. MyHood helps adolescents uncover, explore, and discuss...

College freshmen typically turn to a peer before a professional when dealing with a mental health problem, but peers are often insufficiently prepared to respond effectively. Huddle is a platform for undergraduates to work with their dorm-mates to develop a supportive community through a 3-step...

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is critical for student success. We created PetMe, a tablet game for children ages 6-8, to provide much-needed instructional materials for schools. In this two player game, children take care of a shared pet. They learn how to navigate their different perspectives...

Throughout the US, student athletes struggle to balance athletic training and academic pursuits. Research has shown that athletes who do so successfully are better at time management and prioritization. Building on educational research, growth mindset and distributed cognition, this app...

From 2010 to 2015, over 320,000 US troops suffered from traumatic brain injury (TBI), which results in declines in cognitive, behavioral and affective functioning and may be intertwined with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Comrade Companion is a semi-anonymous, gamified platform that...

Today, millions of people are turning to technology to learn a foreign language; however, they often can’t transfer what they’ve learned in apps like Duolingo to real-world situations. Language learners need a way to practice language relevant to their personal goals in a meaningful,...

Everyone has a story that's influenced by a history. This constant need to understand who we are becomes even more complicated when we consider the intersection of our many identities. aniani is a mobile platform that aims to ignite a new kind of conversation for families to have about their own...

Simurg is a novel model for structuring learning experiences for students in rural Pakistan. The model describes a collaboration across multiple levels - with village teachers, local and remote mentors and university researchers - to co-design lessons aimed at extending the curriculum to skills...

Growing up is tough, and so is talking about it. Parents might not have the right language or confidence to bring up topics in comprehensive sex education, and while kids are curious, they may not always know what to ask. Instead of silence or embarrassment, learning about growing up can be an...

As antagonism, misinformation, and siloing proliferates on the internet, young people need the skills of critical thinking and argumentation now more than ever. Belief Map is an interactive tool that helps students deconstruct their own beliefs and learn to understand and challenge the beliefs...

Rates of homeschooling within the US are skyrocketing with over 1.7 million children in 2012 alone. In particular, a specific brand of homeschooling - wherein education is actually happening outside of the home - has proliferated and is now becoming the primary mode of independent learning. The...

Giving and receiving feedback can be unsettling, difficult, and even dreadful. Yet, we know that feedback is critical to our learning and development, especially at work. Peak is a mobile app for professional teams that facilitates the feedback process. With Peak, you will learn to define goals...

MathBuddy: Buddy up, tackle math.Many young women suffer from math anxiety that leads them to avoid math-related careers. Women hold only 24% of STEM jobs in the US. MathBuddy is a social math game designed to help young women associate math with the positive feelings of helping someone else. Through a texting-like interface,...

With Anybuddy, kids can turn almost anything in their world into a talking, listening character. Anybuddy consists of a set of facial features that can be attached to ordinary objects to make them "talk." The logic of Anybuddy's conversations are programmed by children, who must make decisions...

CollegePath: You don't have to get there alone.Of the 30 fastest growing occupations in the United States, more than half require post-secondary degrees. Yet in 2015, only one in three adults reported they had a bachelor’s degree or more. CollegePath is a blended learning tool that turns real college application success stories into a powerful...

75% to 80% of university students are stressed. Past studies reported that the five most frequently-used coping strategies among students are dysfunctional, and that despite the prevalence of social media, students are dissatisfied with the level of social support they receive when stressed....

Question generation is a valuable strategy that has been proven to increase students comprehension of specific topics; however, this is a skill that is seldom explicitly taught. AskBetter features a series of modules using learning principles and natural language processing to teach students...

Adolescence is a period of emotional changes. Some teenagers have trouble dealing with them resulting in disruptive behavior. These issues especially affect boys who, in our culture, are not encouraged to talk about their emotions. Tinker.me uses a project-based approach to make students aware...

Hundreds of applications are trying to solve the problem of ‘alone time’ by helping people make friends. me+ shows users that they can make the most of their ‘me time’ with just one thing - themselves. It does this by giving users personalized options for me time activities (information), by...

Vibe: 21st Century AssessmentVibe is an education-focused wearable that tracks students’ growth in classroom environments. Our mission is make the teaching and assessment of 21st century skills possible across all K-12 American classrooms, starting with collaboration and communication skills. Vibe will analyze student voice in...

Math Caper is a computer game that bridges the gap between school math and realistic applications. Typical word problems are unrealistic and encourage students to learn special "math class rules" for solving them. Typical math games pose arbitrary exercises that have nothing to do with the game...

Metacognizant is an application integrated into the middle school classroom, designed to foster metacognitive awareness and positive identity development in a conscious manner. Research suggests that by deliberately exposing students to higher-order thinking strategies, we can begin to close the...

Curativity: Exhibit your storyGrade school field trips are often some of the most memorable and exciting portions of a student’s educational career. However, without purposeful pre-visit preparation, students are not oriented to the physical space of the museum prior to arrival and may not be able to access the concepts...

SuperGenerational: An Intergenerational Feedback AudienceSuperGenerational is an online learning environment where America's senior citizens and younger learners interact around student projects, presentations, performances, and broader questions about life. At the heart of SuperGenerational is the belief that healthy communities are intergernerational...

The Internet is home to unprecedented amounts of learning resources, yet few follow through with aspirations to learn from them. How might we empower learners with skills for self-directed learning? Pixel Art Academy explores this challenge in a video game adventure where participants lead a...

Entering college means having to make decisions for the first time about how you learn best. These skills are usually developed on one’s own through trial and error, if at all. Moreover, a big part of learning how to do this is from the places they do work in. inHabit in an interactive map that...

Domain Change: Career transition for creatives Many aspiring career changers don’t realize that many roles in software development and design require other skills besides being an expert programmer. Creative people with humanities backgrounds offer valuable skills from other domains. Women in particular are underrepresented in the tech sector...

mindfulK12: Mindfulness in the classroomChronic and traumatic stress inhibit areas of the brain necessary for learning. Over 15.5 million children in the US experience factors directly linked with such toxic stress, including living in poverty and exposure to violence. In order to enable these kids to thrive in school, we must address...

Polymath: Preschool counting you can feelIn order to be ready for kindergarten at age 5, preschoolers need to learn a number of early numeracy skills, such as counting to 20, demonstrating one-to-one correspondence when counting, and comparing the size of different groups of objects. Plenty of preschool iPad apps attempt to teach these...

iCanGo: Customized stories in a snapiCanGo is a story-building platform for parents of children on the Autism spectrum. Difficulty with social interaction is seen as the most significant feature of autism. Children with ASD find it hard to access what is described as a hidden curriculum: Important social skills that everyone knows,...

Learn Colors: Repetition in contextAfter learning simple nouns and verbs, children need to start reasoning about abstract concepts like shape, number, and color. This project investigates opportunities for technology to help children master their color words. Language acquisition research suggests that to be remembered, words must...

The 2 Shop: Intelligence on military to civilian careersThousands of honorable service members transition out of the military every year, yet many fail to find viable or fitting careers afterward. Though some resources exist to help obtain jobs, most assume the veteran already has a specific path in mind. The 2 Shop takes it back a step by offering...

Naptitude: Feed your curiosityEvery student is born with an innate curiosity to make sense of the world. However, by the time students reach high school, where motivation to learn is more important than ever, the drive to learn can greatly diminish whether due to a lack of proper academic preparation, a negative attitude toward...

Nomster Chef: Cook. Learn. Grow.A person's life-long eating habits are developed in the preschool years, and children are more likely to try meals that they have helped cook. Nomster Chef helps parents and preschoolers cook together so that children can establish healthy eating habits for life. Nomster Chef centers around the...

FeelingTalk: Helping children with autism recognize and understand emotionsMany children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with reading and understanding other people’s facial expressions and underlying emotions, making it very difficult for them to build social competence and have meaningful interactions with others. FeelingTalk seeks to incorporate learning...

ToGetThere: Empowering teachers and students for group work successWorking in teams is hard and teaching group dynamics takes time. But, team-based learning has been shown to improve test scores, engagement, and excitement about learning and collaboration is an essential skill for knowledge workers. Teachers often avoid team-based learning because managing group...

CodeTalk Revisited: Getting computer science students to talk in classStudents learn through talking about the content, but not all discussions are productive and not all students like to talk or feel comfortable talking. This interactive guide teaches computer science instructors why productive talk is important, what a productive problem solving discussion could...

Superherolympics: Unleashing the superpowers hidden inside all of usSuperherolympics is a multi-player massive-scale board game designed for early adolescent “Third Culture Kids” who are navigating different cultures in their home life and in their world at large. Players create their own unique superhero identities that give them a sense of empowerment and...

FilmMe: Make-your-own-story home literacy experience for young childrenFilmMe is an open source solution that provides basic story-telling experiences for young children (6-9 years old) and support language practice through play. FilmMe was designed to engage the children in exploring media creation by making their own homemade projector. FilmMe also helps children...

NatureQuest: Adventure awaitsFor most of human history, exploring nature was an inherent part of growing up. Today, families are spending less time in nature than ever before, despite numerous studies confirming the emotional, mental and physical benefits of being outdoors. NatureQuest is an interactive app and wearables...

Folktale: Connecting kids and their far-away folksMost kids live away from their grandparents, aunts, and uncles. For preschoolers, especially, communicating with long-distance family members can be a challenge. Folktale is an app that helps these kids and their families connect through storytelling. With photos, avatars, and props, Folktale turns...

Duo Doodle: Drawing children togetherFighting is one of the most common parent-reported issues in literature, as parents often struggle with addressing the abilities and interests of different-aged siblings. Stepping up to that challenge, Duo Doodle is an artboard toy that encourages children to mutually engage in pretend play through...

Periscope: The story beneath the surface. Unlike real life situations, childrens’ literature is populated by narratives that focus on a single point of view, usually that of the protagonist or a narrator. Periscope presents tangible books which expose children to stories told from multiple perspectives using augmented reality. Through the...

Beity: Trauma therapy in Arabic, for children in Syrian refugee campsBeity was designed to meet the need for preliminary PTSD therapy and prevention for resettled Syrian children living in camps. At this time, not enough counselors are available to provide ongoing mental health care to the majority-affected Syrian population. Children remain at highest risk for...

Expressway: Talk about how you feel, while you’re behind the wheelIn their early school years, many children feel a broader range of emotions than they can easily identify in words. However, research shows that being able to identify how you feel is the first step to dealing with your emotions. We’re helping kids learn to identify and express their emotions while...

StickyUnit: Design learning that lasts.Beginning math teachers admit they struggle to utilize the research-supported frameworks for quality instructional design that they learned in their preparation programs, ultimately feeling they do a disservice to their students. With StickyUnit, pre-service teachers craft cohesive units from...

TandemArt: A collaborative museum adventure for early learnersTandemArt is a web-based interactive museum experience for preliterate children and their caregivers. The product facilitates a narrative-based choose-your-own adventure scavenger hunt with guided hands-on and movement-based activities that create an engaging experience with art objects for early...

<something> EPIC: Happy times...in a box! EPIC is a cooperative board game that helps students in life transitions slow down, share stories, and be mindful. Players share stories from their own lives to build the foundation for telling a cohesive story of an imaginary character through school, home, social media, and outside settings...

UqaYou: Tangible grammar connectionsUqaYou is a digital grammar program that teaches the grammatical rules of the Inupiaq language. Sentences are constructed by using different parts of speech combined into one concatenated word. When speaking the language, each pronunciation of the parts of speech changes as they interact with the...

Wholly Cow: Practice Your Whole in OneWe still live in a world where students ask in class, “When am I ever going to use this in real life?” Teachers don’t like to hear it, but it’s a fair question. By high school, many students realize that life’s most valuable lessons should be profound, relevant, and develop the whole learner....

Musicasa: Engaging Children and Parents in Classical MusicMusicasa is an iPad application that engages children ages 4-8 and their parents in the experience of short, curated selections of classical music to help them develop a deeper and more personal understanding of the music. Designed for families to use at home during down time, Musicasa’s games and...

Kibuni: Think outside the blocks. Kibuni is more than a building set, it’s an interactive and open-ended “create” set that merges the appeal and developmental benefits of construction with those of writing and drawing. By incorporating self-orienting magnets and dry-erase technology, Kibuni provides infinite possibilities for...

Make Me: A world of creative confidenceAs demand for creative problem solving rises and DIY movements prevail, many adults who would otherwise engage in creative activities lack something—perceived time, confidence, community, or resources—to actually do so. Make Me builds learners’ creative confidence while combatting these practical...

Worlds: Journey through a coded world.Worlds is a social game for middle school students to learn programming concepts by crafting and exploring virtual worlds. It promotes programming as a form of creation and expression. Learners design and manipulate programmable objects in a scaffolded coding environment that serves as a bridge...

Tink: Your world is what you make of it.What if you could create your world? Tink is a toolkit that allows kids to engage with familiar objects in new ways. The kit includes six sensors (light, sound, tilt, vibration, people, temperature), six plugs, and an iPad application. With Tink, kids can program items in their environments using...

Strummify: Learn guitar the internet way.Existing music education software is expensive and hardware-dependent, often requiring the additional purchase of equipment or the hiring of an instructor, running counter to the prevailing contemporary trend of free online education. Strummify is a web application for guitar players that offers...

Sparkl: Think creative. Think collaborative.Sparkl is a web application that facilitates an ideation process for design teams who are collaborating at a distance. It allows users to create virtual, synchronous, and collaborative ideation sessions with their teammates. Sparkl has two core components: idea generation tools and learning...

Raksha: Embedded Environmental Education for Rural IndiaRaksha is a computer-based environmental education tool for youth in agricultural communities of rural India. It is based on the premise that environmental education can be a powerful tool that empowers youth and their families, but only if it is relevant to their current situations. By beginning...

Maketea: Connecting couples through teaMaketea is an ipad app and physical tea kit, which teaches couples Gongfu Cha – Chinese tea ceremony - and in the process, more about each other through a series of self-disclosure prompts. The practice of self-disclosure - the revelation of emotionally salient and personal information from one...

Hüga Forts: Build & PlayFort building can be a formative childhood activity. By constructing and governing their own worlds, children gain an experience of control over their environment that few other activities afford. Hüga Forts aims to make the fort building experience accessible to all children. The Hüga Forts kit...

Horse Sense Problem Solver: Bring horse sense to your problemsEver face a problem, but you find yourself going in circles? Horse Sense helps break out of that cycle and start thinking in a more structured way so that you can get unstuck and start moving forward towards a solution. Horse Sense is a horse character named Sage that asks you to answer a series of...

DesignDuo: DIY design kits for dads and daughtersDesignDuo is a series of DIY design kits for girls to explore new technologies and create cool gadgets for their rooms. Designed for daughters to do with their dads, the kits contain all materials required to create unique projects plus video tutorials, tinkering challenges and easy starter...

Cuéntame Mas: A pocket coach for meaningful parent-child interactionCuéntame Mas is a project designed to foster family interaction through the shared creation of stories, and aimed specifically at Latino families. Parents are shown objects that serve as topics for conversation, and are presented with examples and prompts that encourage rich and textured use of...

Calpr: Data-Driven DialogueCalpr turns a visit to your doctor into a data-driven dialogue; a dialogue where the patient leaves feeling empowered to take charge of their own health, and the doctor feels confident in the provided treatment plan. Calpr synthesizes, analyzes and vets patient-generated data, before entering it...

Asrina: Interactive culturally relevant health educationAsrina (meaning “to smile” in Quechua) is a learning program designed to help Peruvian parents interactively navigate decisions affecting children’s health. As sodas and processed foods become increasingly prevalent in developing countries, children are more vulnerable to cavities and oral pain....

Super Laces: Master The Power To TieSuper Laces reframes the shoelace tying experience into an exciting superhero training ground where kids master new superpowers as they learn to tie their shoelaces. The lace itself is embedded with magnets and color matching activities that support their skill development and comes to life in a...

Conceptualyze: Build to LearnHow can we better organize and understand the information around us? Are we able to use this understanding to create new knowledge? How can we better share our knowledge with each other? Conceptualyze is a collection of software tools that teach learners to construct digital concept maps. Through...

VidIZY: Compelling animations made easyVidIZY is a web application that automatically creates stories or instructional videos for early stage startups and independent users. VidIZY includes a script creator and customization tool, a karaoke-like voiceover and an automated animation engine that renders the script and the voices with...

Handily: Vocational training through gamesLearning to be a technician means acquiring skills that are very tactile in nature and require the use of your hands. The Microsoft Kinect has a gesture-based interface that is particularly well-suited to teach you to use your hands. Handily aspires to develop games that leverage that unique Kinect...

Grandma's Trunk : Break the ice! Cross-Generational collaborative gamesGrandma’s Trunk allows grandparents and their children to share media over long distances. The pain point Grandma’s Trunk seeks to address is the alienation that grandchildren feel toward grandparents due to the fact that grandparents are usually not around their grandchildren much during the child...

TinkerTags: Empowering today's youth, one step at a timeComputing is becoming important in an increasingly technological society. However, many students of color, particularly in low-resourced communities, lack powerful learning experiences in STEM. We have identified a group of tinkerers within these communities that would benefit from an intersection...

Bike to Scale: Pedal your way to understanding energy!Bike to Scale is a public science experience that engages learners, using a combination of digital and tangible tools, by connecting the physical exertion required of biking with graphical, embodied units and comparisons of energy use. It endeavors to establish a basis of understanding about energy...

DanceCuento: Folk dances and tales from cultures around the worldIn a globalized world, young people of different backgrounds would benefit from learning ethnic folklore and dance to develop cultural knowledge and psychomotor skills, which would enable them to bridge gaps in multicultural understanding and overcome obstacles to intercultural social relationships...

Me.Mu: Socio-emotional learning through play and reflectionChildren and individuals with autism often have specific and unique needs, but social skill deficits are common across age, gender, and level of functioning. Many technological interventions have proven effective in helping this population identify behaviors and emotions, but the learners play...

Go Go Games: A trio of matching adventures for kids with autismGo Go Games supports children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in learning to quickly notice the intersections of multiple features of the objects in the world around them – a skill that is essential to learning and comes naturally to most children – but is known to be a common difficulty for...

Amplify Ghana: Connecting farmers with the information they wantOne million families in Ghana depend on farming for their livelihoods. In rural, northern Ghana the dry season extends for 6 months. During that time, farmers grow crops for cash. The farmers are experienced, but unforeseen events - new pests, wells collapsing– have dire consequences. Farmers live...

EduBeats: Interconnecting Literacy Activities with MusicThe activity takes the learner's interest in music and provides and educational experience; challenging them to use specific literary techniques to earn beats and write a new song. While playing this activity, the learner is motivated and put in an environment where the task relates to the hustle...

KaiPals: Bring the ocean homeThink about something you are really interested in. How did that interest start? Likely it wasn’t completely out of the blue. Interest development is closely tied with past experiences and prior knowledge. Actions to help the environment often stem from an interest in protecting nature that grew...

Hip Hip Array!: Two-Dimensional Multiplication GamesMath is beautiful. Its patterns and logic are inspiring. But many students struggle to master core concepts and give up in frustration. This is a tragedy! It is heartbreaking to see smart, capable students turn their backs on math--just because there is a missing link in their understanding. But...

Presence Project: Life moves fast for families. Be here now.Distracted by your smartphone? Overwhelmed by your inbox? You're not alone. In an always-on age, young people and adults alike are looking for solutions to the negative physical and social side effects of digital overstimulation. At key ages for brain development, children are trying to navigate...

Chalk: Transforming school decisions from the ground upSchools have deep pockets of knowledge but few channels for innovation. Outdated social structures lead to decisions based on those who speak loudest, not those with the best ideas. By crowdsourcing questions and ideas across all school staff, Chalk opens new channels for communication and...

Perligo: Read a Language, Learn a LanguageTo build a marvelous castle, you need more than just a few building blocks.
Despite their numerous benefits, reading and listening tasks are often de-emphasised in the language classroom. This is especially problematic for higher ed foreign language learners, who are expected to communicate...

First Class Interactive Airport Window: Where curiosity takes off.A synchronization of existing technologies, First Class enables travelers of all ages and backgrounds to actively explore, discover, and engage in the many learning opportunities embedded in airports. First Class transforms any of the large, observation windows lining modern airport terminals into...

X Marks the Spot: A pirate journey toward pre-algebra skillsMany middle school students have difficulty in algebra because they lack a firm understanding of the pre-algebra concepts that are the basis for future mathematics learning.The proposed solution to this problem is to engage learners with a pre-algebra game on the Sifteo cubes. This tangible tool...

Timeweaver: Learning history by building networksTimeweaver is a map-based tool for building and visualizing historical understanding. By actively connecting events in a semantic web, high school history students create multiple entry points into their knowledge of major historical concepts. Timeweaver is intended for use in a U.S. history course...

GroupRead: Where collaborative reading leads to constructive learningGroupRead is a web-based collaborative reading environment that focuses on reading comprehension for middle school learners outside the classroom. GroupRead leverages the affordances of online social communication as a way to encourage dialogue and to create a community around reading. Core...

barup.mobi: The "rap game" in a gameBarup.mobi allows users to express themselves by generating tweet-like lyrics called tracks. Through social networking, users scaffold and model creative writing skills through rap battles, receive positive reinforcement through release and virtual sale of tracks, and understand financial concepts...

GAME: Gaming, Academics, Mentorship, and ExperienceOur project harnesses multiplayer video game technology (specifically Source engine computer games) in conjunction with web technologies (such as Udemy.com) to provide learners an opportunity to practice their video game skills, form mentor and mentee relationships on topics within and outside of...

Aha! Animations: Presenting the untold stories of scientific discoveryAha! Animations is a web-based resource for middle school students designed to foster science engagement. Comprised of a series of short animations on standard science topics, it presents the often untold story of how our scientific understanding has come to be. Within each animated scene,...

iveBeenThere- Advice. Information. Personal Stories. Relevant Teen Issues.iveBeenThere is a web-based mobile app designed to support middle school students in their transition to high school. Through short video clips, older teen mentors offer advice, information and personal stories about relevant social and academic issues such as sexuality, drugs, race, peer pressure...

Process Pad: Learning to Explain, Explaining to Learn“I know what to do, I just don’t know how to explain it.” - 5th Grade Student
Most assessments in education focus only on a final product and ignore process. Process is hard to capture, but explanations can make a student’s internal thought process more accessible. Explanations can also aid...

PoGo: Encouraging Poets on the GoIn order to provide an opportunity for more creative expression inside and especially outside of the classroom, PoGo invites children ages 7-12 to choose photographs from everyday life to inspire poetic musings. By providing scaffolding for various poetic forms, PoGo will encourage children to...

Speak Easy: want your language learners to Speak? Easy. Practice is paramount in second language acquisition. Unfortunately, there is no practical way for language teachers to get their students speaking outside of the classroom, so many students graduate unable to speak what they’ve been learning. Speak Easy gets students talking outside of the...

SearchWorks

Many of the Master's Projects are indexed on SearchWorks, a catalog system by Stanford University Libraries

Perspectives

Dan Schwartz
Professor of Education

"One of the great joys of the LDT program is the sheer diversity of experiences and interests that LDT students bring to classes and conversations. Some students come to build on their experience in various segments of industry, medicine, and education, whereas other students just come because they want to find out if there is a career trajectory that involves using technology to help people".

A collection of Stanford Graduate School of Education Master’s student projects, papers and portfolios.